The price of one kitchen staple is dropping at a historic rate. In May, egg prices had their largest monthly decline in 72 years. Ricky Richardson, CEO of South Carolina-based Eggs Up Grill, joined Cheddar News to discuss the state of play in the egg industry as prices fall while food costs overall are on the rise again. Egg prices are "returning to more normal levels now, we're running down about 40% on a year-over-year basis," he said.

<div class="block">The price of one kitchen staple is dropping at a historic rate. In May, egg prices had their largest monthly decline in 72 years. Ricky Richardson, CEO of South Carolina-based Eggs Up Grill, joined Cheddar News to discuss the state of play in the egg industry as prices fall while food costs overall are on the rise again. Egg prices are &quot;returning to more normal levels now, we&#39;re running down about 40% on a year-over-year basis,&quot; he said.</div>

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Egg Prices See Largest Monthly Decline in 72 Years

If you've recently noticed that the bill at your local grocery store or maybe your favorite restaurant is higher than usual. You might not be surprised because food prices are on the rise again. Well, overall inflation in America continues to moderate, but items like margarine, flour and bread are getting a bit more expensive. Well, the price of one kitchen staple is dropping at a historic rate in May egg prices had their biggest monthly decline in 72 years. And joining me now is Ricky Richardson Ceo of Eggs Up Grill, which is a breakfast brunch and lunch franchise based in South Carolina. Uh Ricky, thanks for joining you. Be glad to be here. Let's talk about the state of business for your particular chain. We are approaching these busy summer months. How is business faring? Uh Business has been fantastic. We've seen uh incredible sales run over the last two or three years and that continues across 2023. And as you've mentioned, we've seen some uh very nice declines in some of our core staples, uh eggs which makes up about 15% of our total purchases and excited to see that improve profitability. Certainly I imagine that would help. We've seen egg prices very volatile over the past year or so. Ricky. Of course, a lot of that had to do with the flu among other factors, driving up those prices and supply chain as well. What is your outlook on the price point when it comes to eggs and how that will impact your restaurant? Uh, you know, Kristen, you're right with historical highs in egg prices earlier this year, the back half of 2022 they return to more normal levels. Now, we're running down about 40% on a year over year basis with eggs. We're seeing improvements in bacon. Um, it certainly helps profitability at the restaurant level. It takes pressure off of the need to take price increases which benefits our guests that come into our restaurants were able to maintain a very strong affordability from a pricing standpoint and it helps us grow. We've recently opened quite a number of restaurants this year six, so far, this year, another 12 to 15 new restaurant, a second location in Apopka, Florida. Soon to be in old town Florida. So we got some nice growth and improved margins and everyday affordability for guests will help continue that business performance. What can consumers expect, Ricky when they come into one of your locations? You know, we, we uh pride ourselves on the quality and consistency of uh AAA great tasting everyday. Uh, breakfast, meal, breakfast, brunch and lunch is our specialty. So our number one seller is uh what we call our classic, which is two eggs, bacon. Uh You get your side dishes. Home fries is the specialty of ours. So very mainstream all American breakfast, we've got some great tasting omelets. Uh We've got some wonderful brunch sandwiches, uh and brunch dishes that go along with that. Uh some of the best burgers in the business for the lunch day part. So keeping prices affordable while still delivering great value for guests is a key priority for us and helps us really differentiate with a uniquely friendly guest service experience. Well, it sounds like Ricky is the consumer does remain willing to spend that you probably haven't seen really any slowdown in the consumer spending. Is that the case, you know, that that is very much the case we come off some record breaking years in uh 2022 the first half of 23 both in the sales revenues that we're creating uh in our existing restaurant and the growth of new restaurants as we bring on new franchise partners and they build new restaurants uh across our system. So, uh you know, one of the benefits of having a very affordable everyday value as your starting price points, even when you do have to take some price increases to offset the cost of goods that you're selling to guest. Um It takes the pressure off of having to continue to raise those prices and maintain profitability. So we love our positioning. We love our value for money and we love our guest, Ricky. How do you sell the egg as the primary component here? The primary menu item at to your diners and potential diners. Well, Kristen, we, I said we pride ourselves on the quality and consistency. We can do eggs probably more ways than anyone else. There's 13 different ways that we train our teams to be able to deliver great tasting product. Uh, obviously the vast majority of those are some version of an omelet, uh, or, uh, the traditional eggs over easy or sunny side up. But, uh, we've got a lot of skills and do them a lot of different ways and, uh, customize those to how the guests would like them. All right. A staple of the American diet, that's for sure. Ricky Richardson, Ceo of eggs up. Grill Ricky. Thank you.